They're Off and Running

By WALTER ISAACSON

And looking high and low for the winning issues in the mid-term haystack

The Great Communicator was on the road last week, doing what he loves and does so well: selling his party's case to the American people. Stumping in Utah and Kansas, where he offered 95th birthday greetings to Alfred M. Landon, the G.O.P. presidential candidate in 1936, Ronald Reagan sounded some time-tested themes. He extolled traditional values and offered his support for antiabortion legislation and a constitutional amendment that would allow prayer in public schools. He also urged his cheering audiences to keep faith in the economic course he has set for his nation. "You can't go in and instantly clean out the stables and change things that have been piling up for as many years as they have," he said.

It was the President's first political foray of the season. And for better or worse, it called attention to the degree to which his domestic policies, including his management of a troubled economy, could become the central issue of Campaign '82--if central issue there will be.

The candidates, of course, always try to find and define what matters, but the voters do not always pay heed: on the morning after, national trends are often difficult to discern in mid-term elections. There is a certain wisdom in House Speaker Tip O'Neill's maxim that "all politics is local." Yet across the country this fall, the campaign cacophony of pointing with pride and viewing with alarm will largely focus on where the action has been the past two years: the state of the economy and the remarkable shift in domestic policy inaugurated by Reagan in January 1981.

"Reaganomics is the issue between now and November," says Congressman Tony Coelho, chairman of the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee. Richard Bond of the Republican National Committee concurs: "This election will measure the President's popularity and the continued acceptance of his economic agenda."

Aside from whatever message it contains, the Nov. 2 voting will determine how much congressional support Reagan will continue to have for his revolutionary program of scaling back the domestic role of the Federal Government. On the average, since World War II, the party out of power has gained twelve House seats in mid-term elections. Barring some unexpectedly disastrous news about the economy, the Democrats can reasonably hope to add about this number to their 51-seat majority in the 435-member body. Such a gain might be enough to deprive Reagan of the fragile working coalition that allowed him to pass his major tax and spending bills. The seats of 19 Democrats, 13 Republicans and one independent are at stake in the Senate; the Democrats might cut the current G.O.P. eight-member majority in that chamber to five or six. There are also 36 governorships up for grabs, 20 held by Democrats and 16 by Republicans. The Democrats hope to pick up about eight more.

These races were in full swing last week as candidates flitted from state fairs to labor rallies, barbecues to beach parties. On Lake Candlewood, Connecticut's maverick Republican Senator Lowell Weicker, dazzlingly visible in green-and-yellow slacks, hit the beach at four different villages, riding a canopied pontoon boat laden with campaign workers and a Dixieland quartet. In Miami, Dante Fascell's annual picnic featured free fried chicken and even freer political oratory by both the 14-term Democratic Congressman and by Florida's Governor Robert Graham. Colorado's Democratic Governor Richard Lamm, looking fit in jogging togs, ran a foot race at the base of the Rocky Mountains. In wilting 100DEG heat, California's Democratic Governor Jerry Brown carried his campaign for a seat in the Senate to an AFL-CIO picnic near Oakland.

Primary elections continued to narrow the field of contenders last week. George Wallace, emphasizing the need for more jobs and abandoning the segregationist rhetoric that won him three previous terms, led a field of six Democrats seeking the Alabama governorship. With 42.4% of the vote, including a surprising 35% of the blacks, he landed in a Sept. 28 runoff with moderate Lieutenant Governor George McMillan. In Florida, L.A. ("Skip") Bafalis, assisted by the Labor Day appearance of Vice President George Bush, won the Republican nomination to challenge Governor Graham.

The Democrats' strategy for Campaign '82 is to convince the electorate that the Republicans are responsible for the current recession. They will try to cast the election as a chance to modify some of the Administration's "excesses." Says Party Pollster Peter Hart: "I think it's an adjustment election. The voters want to make some changes, but they're not interested in scrapping Reagan's program. They want a mid-course correction." The Democratic dilemma is similar to what the Republicans faced during the heyday of liberalism: meekly endorsing the thrust of the national mood while quibbling with some of the policy extremes.

In order to offer a credible alternative, the Democrats must show that they have learned the lessons of 1980. Says Party Official Eugene Eidenberg: "We've got to show that we too can set priorities, that we too can say no." Party strategists recommend that candidates stress the "fairness issue," hammering home that the Administration's tax and budget cuts have mainly helped big corporations and the rich. A series of television ads that will run in selected districts beginning this week feature the tag lines "It's not fair, it's Republican," and "We are the Democrats, and we stand for fairness."

Republicans are prepared for some losses in the House, but not the massive hemorrhage of 40 or 50 seats that some G.O.P. strategists were unhappily predicting this summer. "We are in a hell of a lot better situation than we were six weeks ago," says a senior White House official, referring to the drop in interest rates and Reagan's successful display of leadership on the tax bill and in the Middle East. If the party can hold its losses to within a dozen House seats, the election will be not a watershed but rather a reluctant ratification of Reagan, at least for another two years.

White House officials concede that continuing high unemployment (9.8% last month) could darken the rosy Republican hopes. Across the country, political pros of both parties, when asked about the decisive issues in their area, respond with one word: jobs. Some analysts say that if unemployment rises to 10%, the symbolic impact alone might turn ten more House seats over to the Democrats. On the other hand, one of the complexities of this election is the degree to which those hurt by the recession have accepted Reagan's course as painful but necessary. "We don't know what this group will do on Election Day," says Roger Fox of the Chicago Urban League. "It's an uncontrolled, raging bull."

Also critical for the G.O.P will be whether blue-collar workers, about 55% of whom voted for Reagan two years ago, return to their traditional Democratic affiliation. Organized labor, on the defensive in many areas, is nonetheless striving to line up its members with computerized mailing lists and revitalized fund raising. Miami Democratic Leader Rob Schroth says that adversity has helped reunite the old Democratic coalition. "Reagan has done more to bring them back to the fold than the best political organization could." Polls show that 60% of blue-collar workers plan to vote Democratic.

Another crucial factor will be the women's vote. By a 55-to-45 margin, women oppose Reagan and his policies--notably his cuts in social programs, his opposition to the Equal Rights Amendment and his hawkish defense posture. Also, since many women were the last to step on the economic ladder, they have been the first to be laid off.

Republicans will benefit from a far larger party war chest: $126 million so far, compared with $15 million for the Democrats. The key to Republican riches has been sophisticated direct-mail solicitations. Although individual Democratic candidates tend to raise more money than Republicans, mainly because more of them are incumbents, the G.O.P's overflowing campaign treasury will allow the party to funnel dollars into close races and spend up to ten times as much as the Democrats on nationwide television.

Redistricting is another factor that should work to the Republicans' advantage. On the basis of the 1980 census, many Democratic strongholds in the industrial Midwest and Northeast lost House seats to more conservative Sunbelt states. "Redistricting had to break our way," says Republican Congressional Campaign Committee Director Nancy Sinnot, although she admits that shrewd gerrymandering by Democratic state legislatures cut down on potential G.O.P. gains. Republicans have been active and successful in recruiting strong candidates for the 17 new districts in the South and West. This year there are 57 districts where no incumbent is running. "Where we'll win or lose is in the open seats," says Michigan Congressman Guy Vander Jagt, Chairman of the House Republican Campaign Committee.

The toughest battleground this fall will be the Midwest, where once throbbing factories now lie idle, and fertile farm lands are producing a harvest of debt. The ravages of recession have brought Reaganomics to the fore. Says Jim Ruvolo, executive director of the Ohio Democratic Party: "Reagan's trip out West to play up social issues was a smokescreen, and if he tries it in Ohio, it won't work. There's only one issue here, and that's the economy. We have 650,000 Ohioans out of work." Laments hard-pressed Republican Congressman Cooper Evans of Iowa: "There's nothing wrong with my campaign that 50-c- more a bushel for corn and a 2% drop in interest rates would not cure."

The bellwether races in the Midwest will be for the Governors' mansions; Democrats have a good chance to wrest eight of them from Republican hands. The clearest ideological battle is in Michigan, which has the nation's highest unemployment rate (14.7%). Conservative Republican William Headlee, surprise victor in the G.O.P. primary, faces Democratic Congressman Jim Blanchard, who has the backing of the United Auto Workers. In Ohio, former Peace Corps Director Richard Celeste, with support from Democratic Senators John Glenn and Howard Metzenbaum, is battling conservative Republican Congressman Clarence Brown for the Governor's job. Michigan and Ohio are among the five states where Republican incumbents did not run again.

In California, Jerry Brown is trying to paint his opponent for the state's open Senate seat, San Diego Mayor Pete Wilson, as a "clone of Reagan." The central issue in this contest, however, is not Reagan, who remains extremely popular in his home state, but Brown himself, who has yet to eradicate his moonbeam image. Local concerns about crime dominate the Governor's race between Republican Attorney General George Deukemejian and Los Angeles Democratic Mayor Tom Bradley.

Because of his personal popularity, Reagan's policies are less of a factor in the South. Many of the region's "Boll Weevil" Democrats, who supported the President's economic program, have been rewarded by being spared Republican opposition. But Florida Congressman Bill Chappell faces a tough runoff against fellow Democrat Reid Hughes, who has made Chappell's support of Reagan's program a campaign issue. Hughes' television ads open with a shot of a real boll weevil munching on a cotton plant, calling it "the insect that destroyed the economy of the South."

In the Northeast, Reaganomics is an issue in the Massachusetts Governor's race. Curiously, that battle is being fought within the Democratic Party. Conservative Governor Edward King has been endorsed by Arthur Laffer, the guru of supply-side economics, who praised him for out-Reaganing Reagan. Former Governor Michael Dukakis, whose faith in liberalism has been reinforced by Reaganism, is challenging King in a primary next week. Another major gubernatorial primary pits New York City Mayor Edward Koch against Lieutenant Governor Mario Cuomo in a popularity contest for the Democratic nomination. The winner will probably face conservative Republican Businessman Lew Lehrman, in which case Reagan's economic policies will enter the debate.

At the moment, that prospect does not scare Republican strategists. Michigan's Vander Jagt is enough of an optimist to predict that his party may even gain seats this year instead of losing them. "If we get a negotiated peace settlement in the Middle East, and interest rates drop a couple of points, and unemployment drops," he says, "we would take control of the House." But then he soberly admits, "Those are three big ifs." Equally big ifs everywhere are the degree to which the personality of a candidate, or a local dispute, will override other concerns. The absence of a campaign for the White House permits voters in off years to focus on matters closer to home, and they often do, with cantankerous, unpredictable, ticket-splitting delight.

-- By Walter Isaacson.

Reported by Christopher Ogden/Chicago and John F. Stacks/Washington

With reporting by Christopher Ogden, John F. Stacks

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